Rainbow flag protester detained during Sochi torch relay

A VIDEO of Russian protestor Pavel Lebedev being tackled by police after he started to wave the rainbow flag during an Olympic torch procession in his town is doing the rounds on the internet and social media.

As the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympic torch relay made its way through Lebedev’s town of Voronezh in Russia, his friends filmed him waving a rainbow flag, and kept filming when Russian Olympic officials took the country’s homophobic “gay propaganda” laws seriously by tackling him and forcefully removing him away from the torch procession.

Local police where called and Lebedev was then detained.

“Hosting the games here contradicts the basic principles of the Olympics, which is to cultivate tolerance,” Lebedev told the Associated Press, who had contacted him by phone while he was at the police station.